ADVOCATING FOR CHANGE IN CLEAN ENERGY

The wPOWER Hub continues to take steps towards increasing public awareness about the work of the Hub and that of its partners to demonstrate the critical role of women in the clean energy value chain.

The wPOWER Hub Director, Wanjira Mathai and Academic Director Prof Kiama Gitahi, have participated in several high level assemblies where they presented excellent opportunities for raising public awareness for wPOWER Hub activities and thereby highlighting the critical role of women in addressing the climate crisis.

Nairobi International Trade Fair 2015: wPOWER Hub, scooped second position in a category of ‘The best stand demonstrating the application of environmental quality standards’ at the NITF,the largets Trade Fair in East Africa.

On display at the wPOWER Hub stand, were environmentally friendly clean cookstoves and lighting technologies which were in line with the year’s trade fair theme – Enhancing Technology in Agriculture and Industry for Food Security and National Growth. The technologies are able to combat climate change which is a major contributor leading to food insecurity. A healthy nation is a productive nation and also entrepreneurship from energy technologies enhances economic growth.

World Forestry Congress: The Project Director and the Project Officer attended the World Forestry Congress in South Africa. The congress was held for the first time ever in Africa under the theme ‘Forests and People: Investing in a sustainable future’. The focus was on the social-economic development and food security; building resilience, integrating land uses, encouraging product innovation and sustainable trade and improving governance.

The Project Director Ms WanjiraMathai was a speaker at a side event named The hottest topic in forestry: How we can make woodfuels more sustainable? She also spoke in Special Event: More than heat! Wood energy for the future.

Sustainable Tree-Based Bio energy Workshop:The Project Director, Project Officer and the Communication officer attended a Sustainable Tree-based Bioenergy in Sub-Saharan Africa Workshop at the World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF) Nairobi. As wPOWER seeks to increase public awareness on clean energy and aggregating data to build evidence base on integrating women in the energy access value chain, the workshop brought together policy makers and experts from around the world to draft an Agenda for Action on the bioenergy sector.

Women & Girls Rising Conference: The gathering brought together policy makers, activists and scholars working on a range of issues relating to the achievement of basis human rights and development opportunities for women and girls around the world. Wanjira Mathai’s presentation focused on the role of the historical Women’s Conferences in nurturing women’s movements around the world. Wanjira highlighted the role of women in the energy access value chain. She noted that when women are directly involved in the value chain: energy access will increase, livelihoods will improve, and environmental degradation will decrease. More specifically, she noted that wPOWER partners believe that clean energy technologies like solar lamps and clean cookstoves will be adopted in greater numbers as women entrepreneurs market and sell them and use them themselves.

Leader’s Forum on Women Leading the Way: The Mary Robinson Foundation and UN Women co-hosted the Leaders’ Forum on Women Leading the Way: Raising Ambition for Climate Action. The forum was designed to showcase women’s leadership, raise ambition at the national and international levels and share how women are successfully overcoming obstacles to design and implement effective actions on climate change. Present at the forum were current and former heads of government, ministers, scientists, leaders from grassroots, youth, indigenous organizations, civil society and the private sector. Each table was chaired by an eminent personality. Wanjira was invited as one of the Women Leaders from civil society and presented the work the wPOWER Project is doing in East Africa, India and Nigeria at a roundtable chaired by a member of the Elders, HE Graça Machel.

The Cookstove Future Summit: Hosted by the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, a wPOWER Hub Partner, this summit brought together world leaders and global influencers in government, finance, industry, research, civil society and entrepreneurship for a remarkable opportunity to transform the way the world cooks, and help prevent millions of premature deaths that occur every year from household air pollution.

During this Summit, the wPOWER Project Director moderated the opening panel on Why the Future is Now: The Need to Scale Rapidly and also presented the wPOWER Hub commitment to serve a catalytic role in supporting our partners to hasten the adoption of clean energy technologies while ensuring the involvement of women within that value chain.

No Ceilings: The Full Participation Project: The wPOWER Hub Project Director participated as a speaker at the launch of The Full Participation Report.Compiled by the Clinton and Gates Foundations after an analysis of more than 1.8 Million data points from over 190 counties, the Report presents the most complete picture of the status of women’s participation since the 1995 UN 4th World Conference on the Status of Women in Beijing.

Accelerating Clean Energy in Africa Workshop: The Academic Director Prof Kiama Gitahi attended and participated at the ‘Accelerating Clean Energy in Africa Workshop’ at Desmond Tutu Conference Centre in Nairobi. The workshop was organized by the African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS) in partnership with The Energy Resources Institute and the Department of International Development (DfID).